LIVE show on Location at Sawyer Park Icehouse

It's the Homeowner Show. Welcome to another live podcast here at Sawyer Park Ice House. We are here with the net and we are living it up right tonight. We are meeting with lots of entrepreneurs, business owners, and operators, and we're gonna bring you all the best information and options for you and your home. So glad you guys could join us. For another episode. While we are not in the studio, we're gonna do the best that we can out here in the noisy Ice House Arena and get it knocked out for you guys tonight. Hopefully you can— if you can't be here, hopefully you can join us online. It's going to be a good time. Hopefully you're hearing all the good times that are happening behind us, and we're going to kick things off tonight. We got, we got

2 special guests, but before we get to those guests, I want to go ahead and thank our sponsors. Thank you to Lone Star Appliance Repair. You can reach them at 936-647-2364. They are the best appliance repair company in the land. You can text them, give them a call. Guys, they're going to be honest with you. They keep all the parts in stock, so you're not having to sit and wait while your repair needs to be done, while your refrigerator gets hot. They're going to get it fixed. They're going to get it taken care of. And it's honestly, it's just going to be cheaper than going out and buying a new one. And with all these tariffs coming through, while you may think they're a great thing, they're going to make your appliances

way more expensive. So right now it's going to be cheaper to get your appliances repaired. Give them a call, 936-647-2364. We also want to thank our other sponsor, True Texas Solar and Roofing. You can reach them at 936-286-8325. They are your one-stop shop for solar and roofing. Uh, you can get complete energy independence by giving them a call. They can get you set up with solar, they can get you set up with a whole home generator, they can get you set up with a whole home battery, and they're going to get you off the grid as much as you legally can be. and get you set up right. They can also inspect your roof and make sure that it's set up for those solar panels to be put on right. Give them a call,

936-286-8325. And right now tonight, we got 2 guys sitting down with us that are actually in the roofing industry themselves. We're gonna, we're gonna get to all of it tonight. Um, and you know, who knows, it, it could be, uh, we didn't even talk about what we could talk about. We're gonna talk about everything, I guess. So why don't you guys let everybody know who you are and what it is that you guys do?

Yeah, so my name is Wilder Titus. I'm the co-owner of Ryan's Roofing, and we're based out of League City, Texas.

And you are? I'm Alex Johnson, sales manager for Ryan's Roofing. Yeah, you might hold the record for like deepest voice we've ever had on the podcast. Thank you, thank you. Well, so give me an idea, like you guys are down in League City. I mean, it's a little bit closer to the coast than we are. I imagine the roofing business stays a little busier than it does up in here. What do you guys feel like your specialty is? I mean, what is it you guys do better than anybody else?

So I think my specialty is personally, so I used to work for State State Farm, I was an adjuster. So I think I bring that edge to the table that I can tell you within 10 minutes whether your house is going to be approved by insurance. Yeah, a lot of roofing companies out here, you know, when they meet the adjuster, it's kind of up in the air. They're not sure if it's going to be approved or not. But based on the experience that I have at State Farm, which is the strictest insurance, that kind of gives me an edge when I'm going into battle with it.

Yeah, so I mean, so you're the guy that's used to being yelled at while you're on the property?

Yes, basically.

So I mean, I, I know that I mean, I mean, because you come from the insurance world, to me that's helpful because I know that insurance is drastically changing in Texas. You know, are you guys anticipating that? Like, what are you guys thinking? I mean, like, let me— for those of you that don't know, I, I mean, I don't know about all insurance in Texas, but I do know that like probably within the next 5 years roofs are going to be a whole separate insurance policy. Yeah, they're getting rolled out of regular homeowners insurance. It's just not going to be a thing anymore. Yeah. So I mean, like, what are you guys doing to kind of prepare for that? What do you guys think about that?

I mean, so what we're kind of doing to think about that is basically when we go to a home, regardless if we actually do the replacement or not, we're making them aware of the policies that the insurance is looking for.

Okay.

You know, even if they're— even if there might not be enough damage on the roof to get a replacement, we're telling them basically this is what your insurance is looking for. So, you know, when they call us, obviously we're gonna be ready to do the work.

Yeah.

So that's kind of how we go against that.

Yeah. I mean, and how much— how much of what you guys are even doing is insurance?

So I would say about half.

You're moving some stuff in behind you, so sorry if it— Yeah, you're good. There's not a shadow following over Sorry, go ahead.

No, I would say about 40% is insurance. We're actually trying to get more into commercial because if we can avoid insurance, if we can avoid insurance, obviously it's a good thing because, you know, I used to work in insurance. I know how hard it is to go against your insurance agent and all that. And another thing that stands out about Ryan's Roofing is we actually have a 90% success rate because even if the insurance says no, we go after them. Because if we believe our homeowners have been unfairly treated, we go after them when other roofers will just move on to the next one.

Yeah, I mean, like, I mean, what is— what does that mean? And when you say that you go after them, like, what sort of recourse does a roofer have? Like, I mean, obviously you've been an adjuster, so you know how to work that relationship a little bit. So how does that actually work?

So basically, um, there's a lot of adjusters out there, even when I used to work at State Farm, that, for example, you know, there's guys out there that if it would take too long, if they're just not good people, they would deny claims just based on because they don't want to do any paperwork, right? So basically what I'm saying, I'm not saying it happens all the time, but there are times where an adjuster will say there's no damage, and I can see it from the adjuster side and the roofing side, and I can say, hey, You know, the way State Farm does it, if you have over 50% damage, you get a roof replacement. Anything below that is you're just going to get a repair. So if I— basically what I do is I vouch

for the insured that doesn't know anything, and I bring to the table my insurance experience to get them the roof if it's warranted. It doesn't happen all the time, but most roofers will be like, oh, their insurance ain't paying for it, we're going to the next one. Like, I make sure my customers are treated fairly when the insurance won't treat them.

Yeah. I mean, you're sticking up for them.

Yes, essentially.

Like having the conversation, not just backing down immediately because they say no.

Pretty much.

I got you. So, I mean, like on that end, then, I mean, you were, you were We were State Farm. Yes. So, I mean, from your experience, I mean, how long you been doing this, by the way?

So I've actually been with— I'm a co-owner. I've been the owner for 3 years with the co-owner.

He's—

the company's been in business for 7 years. He did it 4 years without me and then the last 3 with me. And I was an adjuster for 2 years before that, before this.

Okay. How long you been at this? Uh, so I've been this for a little under a year now. I'm prior military. Oh, really? What branch were you in? Air Force. Air Force? What were you doing over there? F-35s, as a maintainer. Okay. Where were you stationed? I was stationed over in Hill.

Where?

Hill in Utah.

Okay.

But then I went everywhere. I mean, I went to Japan, Guam, Jordan. Sweet. Well, my cousin's a drone pilot with the Air Force out in Vegas right now. Yeah. I mean, are you familiar with like with what's going on with those guys right now? Not the drone pilots themselves.

No.

Like I said, working with the F-35s, F-22s, and B-2s, all the 5th gen manned aircraft fighters. And the B-2 is a bomber, obviously. But yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'll circle back around to the interest. This is just interesting to me. So I was having drinks with a couple of pilots, drone pilots, and their beef with the Air Force right now is they're going to do a career in the Air Force. They've been sort of pigeonholed into the drone program, which is an extremely valuable program to the Air Force. Definitely outside of the Air Force, that has next to no value. Exactly. For that job experience. And they don't even leave with like any sort of hours

in the air. Yeah. No flying hours. Even though like they're, they've, they're literally flying drones for like 12 hours at a time. time, but they can't fly a commercial. Yeah. It's dumb. It is very, very dumb. I don't know what to do with it. I mean, it's like, yeah. I've known quite a few people that cross-trained from that career field into maintainer, cuz it was just like, what's the point? Cuz after the fact, you know, maintainers, uh, one of the options for me was to go work for Boeing or something like that and go, you know, go work on aircraft and continue that. But like you said, with them and the drone pilots, they get next to nothing outside of the Air Force. And yeah, it's kind of, kind of sad. I mean, if you have

a career in the military, of course follow that. do that. But within, like, outside the Air Force, yeah, you know, why are you doing it? You know? Yeah. And like my, my cousin that went in, I mean, he went in with a pilot's license. Yeah. And still he's not getting any experience as a pilot, even though he's flying aircraft. Like, he's flying hours up and up and he's not flying— And like more sophisticated aircraft than like— Oh, yes. If you know anything about the drones that the Air Force fly, more sophisticated than most of the airplanes. So it's like, I don't get it. But anyway, on the insurance side of things. Yeah. Like, what is, what is one of the toughest ones to deal with

right now, at least in Texas? Because I know they're— I know all of them are changing their policies, they're changing the way that they do things, which I mean, like, and I don't want you to like speak bad about anybody, but like, which one's the hardest one that you found to deal with lately?

I would say, so obviously I worked for State Farm for 2 years. The other co-owner, he actually worked for Allstate. So I would say most people say State Farm.

He's shaking his head. Allstate. State Farm and Allstate, I would say, in my opinion, are probably the hardest.

And I feel like most of the country would agree that State Farm and Allstate are the hardest to get bought by.

Is State Farm the one that just recently pulled out of California?

Yes.

Yes.

Because all the wildfires.

Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. Okay. That one bugged me a bunch. Oh, yeah. Like, not because I wasn't mad at State Farm at all.

Yeah.

I was mad at the people who were mad at State Farm that hadn't been listening to what State Farm had been saying for like the last 5 years.

Yeah.

Like, they're like, hey, we can't continue to offer homeowners policies because the California government won't deal with the landscape that's going to eventually cause a forest fire. And then right as they pull out, there's a forest fire, and it's like no one was listening to the boy who cried wolf when there was an actual wolf in the state.

Yeah, that's true.

So, you know, but I get their frustration because their house burned down. Like, I'm completely sympathetic, and we had good friends that lost their homes. But like, insurance is so weird right now. It is. Like, I imagine like it's gonna be changing the way that you guys even market to customers. Oh, for sure. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Well, okay. I would say like a lot of things that people don't understand about insurance per se is like there are so many like little, little niches in the policy because the policy for State Farm is over 20 pages.

Yeah.

I mean, you have print—

Who wants to read that?

Print that's yay big trying to get all that stuff. So there's so many ways that State Farm can basically find a way not to pay. I mean, just me speaking about how my experience, you know, there's just, there's a lot of qualifications that people, that the State Farm agent is supposed to tell them about that doesn't get communicated. And so people are burned out and I was the one telling no, but now I'm the one saying yes. So I kind of switched sides. Now I'm helping people.

So are you guys exclusively doing roofs? Are you guys doing like roof extensions?

Are you guys—

So yeah, we do roofs, we do gutters. Okay. We do like fascia, soffit and all that. Soffit repair, fascia repair, roof repair, roof replacement. Fences as well? Yeah, we contract out for fences. I mean, we can obviously contract out drywall and all that, but our main focus is roofs and gutters. So what do you— how do you guys feel about different kinds of gutter guards? I'm sorry, could you say that again? Gutter guards. Gutter guards. Yeah, like what, like what's, what's one— I mean, if you guys are installing them, like, that's something I know people are interested in. Gutter guards are good. I mean, they're nice and they don't destroy your gutters. Like, people, like, some people are afraid of them because they're afraid of the extra

weight when it's— I mean, it's real light aluminum. Yeah, but when you add all that onto a gutter, it's a lot more weight. And I mean, um, uh, back in high school I did Christmas lights with my mama. Yeah, yeah, she had a— so gutter guards were, uh, not fun then. No, but seeing them and what they, like, what they could offer. Even as a high schooler, I wasn't a homeowner then, nothing like that. And I was like, wow, these are like, these are smart. This is a good, like, a good idea. And gutter guards, I mean, it's easy to sell on our end. Sure.

Yeah.

And it's not, it's not that much more expensive, but you're getting gutters, if you're getting gutters installed or gutter replaced, gutter guards are— I think it's a no-brainer personally. It's just the protection it offers.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, for me, it's like keep old people off the roof. Because like, otherwise, like, look, some 72-year-old man gonna think he needs to be climbing up a ladder to get the pine needles out. I mean, it's not a good idea. I mean, tomorrow I'm helping my buddy's friend. My buddy's in college right now in Oklahoma, and his dad, he's legally blind. He's an older gentleman himself. So he actually texted me and he was like, hey, I need some help with the gutters. He has a 2-story house. And I was like, oh, of course, no problem at all. And I mean, like, if he had gutter guards, you know, would that be an issue? But at the end of the

day, it's just It's smart business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm, well, I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting the notice to move on with to my next guest because we got to keep this thing rolling tonight. But like, if you guys would let everybody know again, like, the name of your company, how to get a hold of you guys.

Um, okay, yeah, so our, uh, so our company name is Ryan's Roofing. Um, our work phone number is 281-729-3012. Uh, we do free roof inspections, and our slogan is, we're there for you when the insurance isn't.

Awesome. And you guys, I mean, do you guys operate all over Houston?

Yes, yes, yes, sir.

Fantastic, man. Well, thank you guys for sitting down. Appreciate you guys sponsoring the event for sure. Super good to meet you guys. I mean, hopefully we get to connect later on. I mean, hang out and have a good time. It's a good place to do it. So y'all have a good night. Yeah, good to meet you. Good to meet you, brother. Yeah, sharp suit, by the way. Appreciate you, man. Yeah, yeah. Well guys, we are, we are still rocking and rolling tonight. Hopefully you learned a little bit about roofing tonight, but yeah. We're gonna continue on. We got our next guest about to sit down. Yeah, right there in that one, if you don't mind. Um, how you doing?

Good, how are you?

Very good. If you can, like, take your hand, put it right there, and then put this down, and then put it down kind of at your chin. There you go. Perfect. So how are you doing?

I'm good, how are you?

Very good. Tell me your name and what you do.

DNA High Easton, and I am an estate planning, probate, and guardianship attorney.

All right, so like break that down for me.

I'll break it down.

What are we talking about?

So wills and trusts.

Okay.

If people are thinking about end-of-life care, people are on their deathbed, I go do home visits and try to help people get their estate plans taken care of before they pass away.

Oh, fantastic.

And protect people by planning for the future so that their life and legacy is protected.

Okay, I'm gonna show off a little bit.

Okay.

So I I learned— so my wife had to take care of 3 estates since we've been married. So, and I did not know that executrix was a word.

It is a word. It's a word for women who are doing those duties.

Yeah, right. I mean, I was just like, you're the executor of the estate. And she's like, you shut your mouth. I am not.

She's the executrix.

That's right. I mean, like, why is there a differentiation there? I mean, like, is there a reason or—

Yeah. Yeah. So an executor, it's a gender-neutral term, but they tend to do it for mostly men back in the day. But now they, you know, they have it for the female. So the female is an executrix and then everyone else is an executor. But some women like to go by the executor. They're not discriminatory with that.

Sure. Yeah. I mean, like, this is, this is what makes it confusing to me is like we have all this stuff about— so like we have the Oscars, right? We have the Oscar for the best actor.

Yeah.

And none of the actresses want to be called an actress anymore. They all want to be called actor, you know. And like, and so then I enter the legal field and like, well, this should be the kind of the same thing. So everybody's an executor.

No, it's an executor.

Like if you've call them an exec? They want to be executrix. Okay, fine. That's fine.

That's fine.

Yes.

Yes. It's a thing sometimes. It's definitely a thing.

I don't mind. I just, I just want to know the rules. When does gender matter? That's what it is.

I know, right?

So, I mean, how long you been doing this?

So I have been an attorney for 5 years. Okay. Almost 5 years. But I was actually a social worker when I first started. So that's kind of how my story began. Okay. And I fell in love with trying to help families. And I knew at some point I was going to help a family. I just didn't know in what capacity. And then when I was trying to study for the bar, I had about 4 people pass away in the span of like 6 months. So it was really hard to study and really hard to practice— or not practice, but actually prepare for the bar exam.

Yeah.

And that kind of segued me into realizing that it's important to plan for your estate, right? Because your families that are left behind are the ones that are having to not pay the price, but they're going to have to deal with grieving and trying to help you. navigate through that. So that's kind of how I started. I was doing family law for a little bit, estate planning, probate, and guardianship, and then I just opened up my own law firm recently.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much.

So were you going to law school while you were serving as a social worker? Yeah, yeah.

No, there was no way I could.

I was gonna say, I know a little bit about that job. That's, that's pretty— keeps you pretty busy.

There was no way. I had to take some, I had to take some time.

So where'd you go? Where did you end up going?

I went to Michigan State Law.

Wow, okay, so you went to Michigan State and then came back to Texas?

Well, actually, I'm originally from Boston, Massachusetts.

Okay, what are you— listen, what are you doing here?

My husband got a job transfer, so we decided to come down to Texas. So I actually— I grew up in Boston, went to college in DC, lived in Tucson, Arizona for a little bit, moved back to Boston, went to law school in Michigan, went back to Boston, and then came here to Texas.

Oh my gosh, so did you have to take the bar again when you came to To Texas?

No, thankfully I was able to waive in my score, which is, you know, different states have reciprocity, so I was able to take care of that. But yeah, no, I did not have to take it again.

I would never have thought that Boston or Michigan— sorry, I'm gonna adjust something real quick. Yeah. Beautiful. Um, I would have never thought that Michigan would have been so kind to Texas. It just doesn't seem in their nature. I have nothing against Michigan, but like, it just seems like they wouldn't like us that much.

Yeah, yeah, Michigan is Michigan. That's all I can say. Michigan is Michigan.

I mean, if for nothing else, that we're in the SEC down here. I mean, it's like, you know.

Yeah, I know. You would think though, especially going to Michigan State Law, you would think that I would have been at all of the games, all of the games and all the things, but I didn't have a chance to because I was studying for law school. Yeah, that's true.

Well, I'll tell you this, we like on the show here, like we're a big believer in what you do. We're actually holding a live event on the 8th Mm-hmm. For business owners to come in. They're actually gonna be meeting with my attorney who set up my corporations and then also set up my trust.

Oh, amazing.

Or like, like actually has set up several trusts for us now because we wanted, we wanted business owners to find out like what, what the difference is between a trust and a will.

And it's very important.

Yes. And like, and how that can actually be beneficial to you in your business and how that can integrate into your business. It's extremely valuable. I'm actually glad you're here because, I mean, this is a lot of clientele, potential clientele for you that I promise you doesn't have that kind of stuff set up.

And it's so important, and people don't realize how important it is until it's too late, and that's the sad part. So a lot of times I try to educate, empower people. You don't have to use me, but at least know what you have going on for your life and legacy so that way you can protect your assets and protect your children and protect your legacy.

100%. Look, I'll tell you the reason, the reason we got so dogmatic about this kind of stuff. My best friend and his wife were killed tragically in a car accident.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

All of a sudden. And then this was like 4 or 5 years ago now. And like, he was— he and her both were very organized and prepared people.

They had—

they didn't have a will. They didn't have a trust. And so like, there was— there was this just weird moment between the families. It's like they had They had 4 kids. What happens to the kids? And nobody knew.

And that's the saddest part. And, you know, I really want to do this thing. It's called a Kids Protection Plan. I am all about making sure that the kids are protected. And if you do not have a will, at least at the minimum, the state's going to decide it for you. And who wants the state to decide what happens to your assets and what happens to your children?

Yeah. Like, all you have to do is go visit, like, one state-run facility and find out you never want your kids to go there.

Exactly.

And you don't want anybody else's kids to go there either.

Exactly. And as a social worker, I used to be taking kids, so I know how it is when you are trying to think about, okay, you might not need it now, but worst-case scenario can happen in a split second and then you're, you're stuck.

Yeah. And most people think, I don't have the time, I don't have the money, you know, and I can almost promise you that's not the case.

Yeah.

You know, it's really like, it's not cheap.

It's not, but it's worth it.

It's less than a car.

It's like the value is way better than what the potential price is. And a lot of times I tell people that if you're not ready to do it now, that's fine. Yeah, but eventually if you don't do it, the cost of how much that's gonna take away from your estate is huge. Yeah, so you pay the money now upfront. Yes, it's gonna suck a little bit, but you're able to keep the money in the estate. Your money stays with your family, and then you have peace of mind knowing that your family's taken care of.

Yeah, and it's protected to a certain degree. You can also set stipulations. Like, we learned more about ourselves just by going through the process with our attorney. Yeah. And him asking us questions that we hadn't thought of.

Yeah.

You know, and that's, and that's your job.

Yep. You know, exactly.

And it can be uncomfortable, but that's a good thing.

Yes.

You know, mm-hmm.

I'm glad you have that taken care of. It's one less person I have to worry about, so that's awesome.

There's other reasons to worry about me.

We'll talk about that later.

That's right, that's right. So, I mean, is there anything else you want everybody to know about, like, what you do? I mean, like, services that you offer? Or before JoJo kicks you out of here.

I know, right? Well, I have to say that I'm just— I'm very passionate about it. I really want people to know how important it is to have an estate plan, to prepare for your families so that way they're not having to deal with the aftermath of things happening when you get left behind. But my name is DNA High Easton, and I'm very happy to be here. I'm of High Easton Law Firm, and I'm just really, really glad to do this. I didn't even know I was gonna do this today.

This is fantastic. How did you find out about this?

Somebody had invited me over to come to the net event, and so I was here, and then they were like, oh, we're doing a podcast outside, you want to join? I was like, sure.

That's so cool. Yeah. Well, how do people get a hold of you if they want to find you?

So they can call my office. My office is 281-895-1721. They can visit my website at higheastonlaw.com, and they can also go on Instagram and find High Easton Law on Instagram. But as well, if they want to follow me personally, because I'm an open book, @misslegallyd. Yes, I am not, um, what's her name, Elle Woods.

Do you have the suit though?

I do.

Okay, my daughter actually has the pink. Oh yeah, yeah, that's like her idol. Yeah, for sure. If you could do me a favor, yes, go on one of the live feeds. Yeah, it's either on YouTube or Facebook, and just leave those links in the comments. Absolutely. That way we can put them in the show notes when we actually put the audio out. I, I just want to make sure and get it.

Yeah, that would be amazing.

Yeah, yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you for sitting down.

Of course, pleasure.

Good to meet you.

You too.

All right guys, we are still rocking and rolling here at Sawyer Park Ice House. Um, glad you guys could join us here on the live feed. Um, wow, let's see what's going on here. I'm trying to— there we go. All right, there we go. Yeah, we, uh, we're— yeah, we're having a good time tonight. I need, uh— what, what's going on? Is Adrian sitting down? Oh, we're tying— we're tying some— we're making some adjustments to the set. That's what's going on. Thank you, guys. Um, but yeah, we're gonna have a— we're gonna have, man, a roofer, we got a state attorney. Let me tell you guys, uh, you know, I told that little story about, uh, why we got into, uh, having a trust for our family,

and it's, it's, it's no joke, man. It— when you, when you Come upon a situation where are you guys next? Are you guys next? Come on. We're getting set up for another guest here. You got two drinks. You brought me nothing. Second, he said you got two drinks and you brought me nothing. It's just rude. All right. All right. Did you guys know you were gonna come on a podcast tonight?

Say again?

Did you guys know you were gonna come on a podcast tonight? Not tonight. Not tonight?

No. Now we know.

Now you know.

So we're just gonna wing this. All right. So here's, here's what I want you to do, because I don't have any headphones for you guys. If you can Kind of put it below your chin and then take your hand and do like this. So, and if your hand hits the mic and your mouth at the same time, you're close enough. All right, like right here? Yeah, there you go. Okay, so literally talk to the mic. Gotcha. There you go. As long as you want.

10 minutes.

That's fine. That's fine. Yeah, cool.

All right.

Uh, let me adjust this real quick. You got your drink ready? Okay, yeah, it's like— thanks, sir. Awesome. Adrian, could you, could you ask her to, uh, what whiskey? Uh, Angels. Yeah, yeah, perfect. Can't go wrong with Angels. All right, so let everybody know who you guys are. And have you guys ever seen Kindergarten Cop? Like anytime I have somebody new on the show, the old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Do you ever see that? Yeah. He's a who's your daddy and what does he do? That's how I always feel when like I meet somebody on the show for like like when they're coming on for the first time and they haven't like we haven't like I know what you guys do but like nobody else does

so who's your daddy?

Who's your daddy?

It's Atuma. It's not Atuma. It's not the same thing. Get out. All right. All right, no more. We're done. Get it out of our system. All right, tell everybody who you guys are and what you do.

Oh well, we're Brandon Edwin. We're Breakers Digital, and we actually help businesses. We're AI consultants. Okay, so we actually help businesses kind of figure out through their lead pipeline, through their lead pipeline system, where their leaks at. Just like Like, just like a pipeline.

Okay.

Where are your leaks?

And your blockages?

And your blockages and anything like that. And once we identify where it is that you need the help, then we use our AI solutions and automations to help you fix that up.

Okay. Fill in the gaps doing that with AI. Okay. So, I mean, I'm curious how you even got into this because AI is pretty new. I mean, it's probably like— Newer to the masses. To the public. I mean, so were you guys dealing with it kind of before it became public? Were you, I mean, were you just aware of it? Do you have experience in like tech prior to this? I mean, how'd you even get involved? Yeah, so our background was more on the marketing part. So we grew, we started our business just doing traditional marketing with website design, SEO, you know, ads, the traditional you expect. But we came upon it because Our clients, what their problem they were having was they would get,

say, ranked, you know, on Google, or they have a beautiful website, but the problem they were having now is those leads. Those leads that were coming in, for whatever reason, they'll get to them, you know, at a later time or couldn't get to them in time, or we wouldn't have a follow-up in place. So when we'll ask them, hey, how, um, how are your leads coming in? Especially if they're paying for leads, we'll ask them, hey, so, uh, how many, uh, new leads did you close? How many customers did you get?

this month?

Right. And they'll be like, oh, zero. I was like, I mean, how? Like, what happened? You know? And then most of the time, oh, it's because I didn't get to them on time or I haven't got— I'm too busy. So we saw the same thing over and over and over. So what the biggest issue we saw right there was speed to lead. So I was like, okay, we can solve that speed to lead, then we can help tremendously our clients. And AI at that time, this was like 2022, late 2022, when ChatGPT just released in around November, December, I think it was. I already had a whiff of it, what it was coming, and as far as what it could do. But as soon as it became available, immediately signed up, started playing

with it, and just realized, just doing simple stuff, right? Like, oh hey, like, write me, give me a recipe for a good chicken dinner, you know? Sure, yeah. Real simple stuff. And it would just like start dropping. I was like, wow, okay. It's like, then start role-playing with those. Hey, the customer gets a new lead, you know, how would you qualify a customer for pest control, right? And I'll do that. And I was like, oh, these are the questions you ask. And it'll just give you all the qualifying questions for it. That's when I knew, okay, we would need to start using this for our clients. Did you have a background in tech as well,

or?

No, my— I'm design. So I'm the creative one on this. So I started with web design and kind of started— well, actually started with t-shirts and that sort of stuff, different designs, logos.

Okay, yeah.

Next thing I know, I'm making websites. So again, we were a team in this and we started doing the automations for people, trying to fill in those gaps and trying to help people automate some of these tasks. But then when AI came in, I was like, That's it. Yeah, like we add AI to the automations that are happening and have AI actually do some of these automations for people.

Like, it saves a lot of time.

Game changer.

Yeah, it is for them.

Yeah, for one of the biggest ones was there's people literally spending lots of money on marketing, on ads, and there's actually leads coming in and You don't answer the phone, you don't get back to them immediately, they're— you already know if they found you on Google, they're going to move on to the next person, right?

Yeah, they're going down the list. They're not like, oh, I hope they call me back. No, they're not waiting for you to call back. They're just— Who's answering the phone first? Whoever answers the phones first, that's where it goes.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, so we're like, well, we got the solution. Yeah, let's put something together that not only does it pick up for you, So it can actually message back here like, hey, sorry we missed your call, how can we help you? That's immediately engagement.

Yeah. And that's how we started. It was first, it was just, it was just like that, like, hey, sorry, missed your call, how can I help? Right. So they, oh, it's a text, okay, let me message back.

And that's it, you got them, you know, you now it's, it's up to you.

But now it's, it's, it's a full, it's a full conversation at this point. Oh yeah. Hey, how can I help you today, you know? And then, oh, I need a quote for my for my lawn or to get whatever. Yeah. And it'll start gathering information, the name, number, email address, all that stuff. How big is your yard? So whatever he needs, it'll start grabbing all the information and then it'll let you know whether you want to do an actual appointment or book an appointment to go out there and do a quote or a callback. Yeah. It gets all that info and then lets the customer or the business owner know, hey, John just booked an appointment for this time, this day. Yeah.

So, I want to ask this because I actually had this experience the other day. I was on the phone making an appointment for a phone call, and I was pretty sure I was talking to AI. And so, at one point in the conversation, I just sort of stopped the conversation and I said, hey, am I talking to a real person? And it just redirected me. It wouldn't answer the question, you know, like, because it didn't want me to know. And so like, it didn't bother me. Like, it's fine. Certain things are— certain tonality, the cadence, the way it's speaking, you can tell, okay, this is not how a human will talk, right? Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and some of it is like, they'll go back. It'll go back to things that it knows that works, like phrases, you know, and you'll hear it repeat it sometimes. And so like, they're still working it out. Yes. It's still very, very good. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Yeah. Giveaway for everybody, anyone listening the giveaway if you're talking to a voice AI is when you say something and it repeats, great choice. Now, you know, let's go ahead. If it says something like that, great choice, excellent, just do you know it's an AI? Yes, it'll be, that's awesome. Yeah, exactly. It's like, but in— we're testing right now our current, uh, voice AIs to be more casual, like, okay, yeah, I could do that, that's cool. Yeah, no, it very like, oh, okay,

yeah, yeah, I can do that. Well, I mean, so what do you— what have you guys What's been— because I mean, like, I would, from what I'm gathering, you're, you're, y'all's clients are people like me, business owners, operators, things like that. What do you guys are finding that are the biggest gaps that AI can actually fill that maybe they're not thinking? Because I think most people think of it as like answering like phone conversations and things like that. But like, what is that the biggest one? Or are there other ones that you guys are finding that are way more—

Follow-ups.

Follow-ups. What do you mean by follow-ups? Well, follow-ups.

It's great when you gather that new lead that comes in, great, right? And you call them, you got your appointment, right? And but they're not ready.

Okay.

Okay, a lot of people, or maybe it's more of a phone call and they didn't answer, they didn't get to the appointment.

Sure.

And they give up after that. They're like, okay, well they didn't want it, forgotten.

You move on. Out of sight, out of mind.

Yeah.

Yes.

But how many times has it happened to yourself where you're in the middle of a message, something interrupts you, right? Life, right? And you forget to call them back. You forget. Oh, I forgot. Oh, you thought you sent it. How many times does that happen?

Yeah, yeah.

So it's okay. A lot of people are very intimidated about calling them back Several times.

Yeah, they don't want to be a bother.

They're afraid to be a bother, but I mean, you are running a business, so you kind of have to. And it's— there's a proper way to do it. Obviously, you don't want to be a nagger and things like that, but you do have to reach them back. And they, they contact you first anyway, so they expect you to call them back.

So they, they, they expressed interest in your service or your business, right? They gave you their, their info, so they want you to call them back. And that's one thing, it's like that little shift in your mind is like, I got their name, number, and their email, even sometimes even their address, right? So you can literally go to their house. So it's like, why wouldn't they want you to call back or message back? Yeah, for sure. That's the point. So people just like, oh, I don't, you know, I don't want to be a nuisance. Like, no, you have to. Like, uh, an adoption that people use now is called— for follow-ups is buy, buy, or die. So either

they're buying from you, they're saying goodbye to you, or they just die off. Not literally die, but they die off in the sunset. They no longer respond to you.

They're just not your client by then.

At that point you're like, okay, get them off the list, you know, and just whatever. But those are the options there. So if they're not buying and they're not telling you, hey, stop contacting me, then you just keep following up. Not every day. Sure, I think do it like 3 days, 7 days, have a sequence, and then every 2 weeks. And at that point, if they're not responding at all, then at that point you get the hint. I mean, can you even set it up to where there's like specific triggers? Like, hey, I saw that they opened the email like 10 minutes ago. I want to send another email in about 20 minutes. Yes, exactly. Yes, you can. Yeah, whether it be that— unfortunately, you can't

do it with a message. I know how you can see read message. You can't do that part, but email, yes. If it opens the email, they open it, Yes, it triggers. What's the trigger for that?

Okay, fill out a form. Some people want some sort of form for whatever their business is. It just works out to have a form, right? So those things, when somebody submits that form, it's like, it's great because they're already, they're already agreeing for you to market to them and contact them and ask them to. So they already signed yes, it's okay for you to contact me back. With this form, and that becomes a trigger for several things that could happen. It's really up to the business, kind of like what their process is and what do they need for their process. Everybody has some sort of process. It's a matter of figuring out where you need the help the most.

Yeah, if you don't think you have one, you have one by default. Yeah, it's there. You just don't, you just don't pay attention to it. Most people have a system of neglect. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, so it's, uh, so you either put effort into it and, you know, really, you know, yeah, put it in place for yourself for benefit, or it just kind of just falls. If you imagine it literally a pipeline, it's like if you have— you're missing little gaps there, then the water just flowing down. Yeah, you're just losing everything. So I mean, listen, I am not one of these like Skynet doomsdayers. I mean, like, I don't think it's gonna be anything like that. I mean, I think,

I think there's potential problems. I do. I'm not, I'm not completely ignorant, but a lot of people think that we are a much bigger podcast than we actually are because we leverage AI. And, you know, like, there's a reason I can put out several clips every single night of like short-form pieces of content. It's because I have AI doing all of my video editing. Exactly. And it's ridiculously cheap. I'm surprised that there's so many shows don't take advantage of it. I mean, like, right, I can remember making them myself. It would take me like 2 hours to make one, right? And I can do the entire show in about 10 minutes, and that's just me uploading and clicking things. It's like

not even me doing anything anymore. Captioning and everything for you. Yep. Yeah. So I mean, like, there's, there's aspects to it that are extremely valuable. Yes. Now, is it perfect? No. No, it's still a work in progress. There's so many times where I'll put a clip out there and it makes sense to me, but people watching it would be like, what are you talking about? There's no context for this. And I'm like, stupid AI. It could have written it in the show notes. It could, like, because like it does that. It takes the whole, it'll make a whole transcript. It does all kinds of stuff. Exactly. Yep. So I mean, like there's, there's lots of uses of it out there. And like some of the stuff you guys have talked about makes

complete sense to me, but like what is some of the more unique aspects of AI that people aren't tapping into out there in the business market, if you can think of any? When it comes to in the business that they can use and everything, it's what it can do on the backend of someone like your team. So one thing is just having one that kind of responds to your messages, right? And takes care of this incoming messages. or takes care of calls. That's just one part of your team. Once we get a client that, okay, I need it to be, you know, take care of my customers, customer service, I need it to be more FAQ, I need it to be a follow-up, I need it to

nurture them. So all of a sudden you have a whole team, even like say a scheduling bot that one does certain things, or there's so many— So what's the most important thing different solutions you can use AI agent for that before you know it, you have a team of 4, 5, 6 or more agents all have a task, all have an objective. And depending how they are set up in the workflows, they literally hand off to each other. So that right there is one of the things a lot of businesses do not utilize is because it's like a lot of them don't hate me. Have a system in place or processes, right? So you can't— if you don't have that, you don't even know where to put—

yeah, you don't have—

if you don't even have that, if you don't have that set up, it's gonna be very hard to even have one or two to get a lot of the job done. So, but once you have a system of process in place, then you can plug in all these other agents that literally will run your business on the back— in the background. And, you know, I mean, as far as business owner, you work, you do what you do best, you know, which is that That's run your business, not don't let it run you, you run it. Yeah, I mean, could it do something as complicated as like routing? What? I mean, because this is something I think a lot of people use is routing. Routing? Right, like for me, like I own a

service business, right? So I have multiple techs going out in the field on the daily. Yes. Like, and so like I could, I mean, I kind of do. I mean, we have software that, I think there's a lot of things that people are using that are AI That they don't realize are AI. Yes, exactly. And so, like, I can— right now I have software that I can plug in multiple techs. I have all these accounts that need to get done in one day, and it's going to separate them. Yep. You know, depending on the location. Yeah, depending on location, depending on the scheduled times, depending on appointment times, all this kind of— and it's going to route them, and then it's going to give them, like, the shortest distance from where

they start to where they begin. Yes, all this kind of stuff. And that's AI. I mean, AI doing it. It's determining that.

Yeah.

The distance and everything, like the, the, nowhere. So find the best time to fulfill these, these clients, whatever. Yes, it is. It's all— that's AI in a nutshell, in that software. Yeah. And so there's— I think there's even like, it's not one that we use, but like a Jobber app or something like that. It's using— it's utilizing AI to do a lot of the stuff that it's, that it's doing. And so people are engaging with AI whether they, whether they realize it or not. If you want it or not, if you're using your— if you have— if you're using your phone, Alexa, Siri, or whatever it is, this AI, it's just a version of it. It's a controlled, contained

version of it. But now with— people don't know, I believe this month or next month Amazon's releasing their Alexa Plus. Oh, what's that? So now you can upgrade your Alexa. So now it is truly AI. So for now, you know, it can do simple commands here and there, smart home, all that stuff. But now it'll actually be connected to You know, just like you imagine, it's not going to be OpenAI, no, ChatGPT. I believe they use Anthropic, if I'm correct. I'm not sure. What is it called? Anthropic. It's a whole other language model they use. There's a lot of different language models. Don't quote me on that. I think that's what they're using, but they're using a different language model. But same thing, it connects to it and it can complete

tasks for you now using Alexa. So, okay, so now she's gonna get a nice upgrade. Oh, nice. Well, I— and like, I know that there's all these other ones. I mean, you got ChatGPT, you got Gronk, you got— I mean, there's a bunch of them. Yeah, there's a lot of them. So like, do you guys play kind of in all those sandboxes, or is there one in particular that's kind of like your go-to? Um, they all have their— but yeah, their pluses, honestly.

Yeah, my go-to is ChatGPT just because that's what I started with, and I have it set up to all my stuff already, so It's just—

And it learns from you as you go.

Yeah, I'm constantly— I literally, I really treat it like an assistant. So if I actually had a human assistant, I would tell, hey, update, now I'm doing this. Hey, our services are shifting, so I need you to help me write something like for this or for that. So I update her.

Her.

I guess it's a her. You've gendered her. Yeah, I gendered it. Just like the movie Her. We'll find out real soon if she's pissed off about that.

Yeah, but yeah, I love that one because I have it pretty much set to how I need things to be and, and things like that. And I have it connected to other, other things that I use for, for tasks and, and all sorts of things.

So your outputs will be better too because once it knows exactly what you do, like she does it, like uses it for knowing everything in the business and then how she like, how she likes things done, it— your outputs are gonna be always gonna be better.

Yeah, because it knows ask simpler questions, but it's going to give it to me the way it's been giving it to me.

I have heard a rumor, and let me see if you guys confirm it. I have heard that if you are polite to AI, or ChatGPT in particular, that you'll get better results from it. Have you guys found that to be true, or is that something you've played around with? At the beginning, I did find myself saying always please. Can you please do this?

Yeah.

Can you please? Now it's like, okay, I need, you know, it's like, at the beginning, it was like, I was kind of saying please. Like, you know what I mean? Oh, you know, let me ask. No, can you please modify this? Whatever. Yeah, but now it's like, okay, I need this modified and done this this way. This so yeah.

So some people say that, but honestly, I didn't test that out because I wanted mine to work the way I needed it to. So just in case.

But as I say, but in case they do take over the world, at least they'll remember you. Hey, they were always nice. They were always nice. That was always nice to me. That was say please and thank you.

That's right.

Well, because if you're being mean to it or anything like that, it's gonna constantly be thinking that it's doing the wrong thing.

Ah, okay.

So say, oh, sorry, let me fix that.

It does say sorry too.

Because it's trying to please you, right? So if you are constantly correcting it—

That was wrong, that was wrong.

Then it's constantly wrong. So it's eventually— I feel like it's just not going to be the one you want.

Yeah, we haven't tested it. If anyone out there wants to test it and see, try to piss AI, by all means, go right and see what you can do. Well, listen, we, so we, we haven't, we, I mean, we had, I mean, he's back in town now. We had, uh, the Rizzler who was an intern on the show here. Um, and he, uh, came in and was teaching us how to like jailbreak AI and make it evil. Like, and I got to get it to teaching it how to tell you how to do like not so nice things.

Oh yeah.

Yeah. When it first rolled out, it was kind of just open. That was Wild Wild West in the beginning. Yeah. Now you could do tell it, hey, I would like to know how to, you know, build a pipe bomb. Yeah, exactly. It just threw every other— yeah, you're like, now it's like it's filtered. Yeah, I was gonna say, and everything.

But yeah, I was gonna say, my final thought on that is if more good-minded people are using it for doing good in the world, then more good things will be— it will be used for. Because the bad people with bad thoughts, bad ideas are not gonna stop because you stop using it because, oh my God, let me, you know, I'm not gonna use that, I'm not gonna support that. Yeah, yeah, they're not gonna stop. So that means somebody out there has to create the good things so that way it's used the right way.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you gotta use— start using AI as your, uh, like, as your, as your tool to make your day-to-day life better. And then, you know, it just takes it as your assistant. In other words, instead of seeing it as something evil or something bad, or, or it's going to take over jobs, do this and that. No, it's a— is there— it's here to enhance your life, right? And that's what it can do for business and personal, right? Yeah. So, well, um, I was getting the signal from JoJo, like, any, any parting wisdom or words you want to— you want business owners to know about out there?

Any wisdom?

Or things that you want them to know? Network? Okay. And remind everybody who you guys are and how to get a hold of you if they want to utilize your services.

I'm Brenda.

Edwin.

With Brave Fears Digital.

You can find us at bravefears.com. Okay, www.bravefears.com. And, uh, yeah, we could go there if you want to kind of see how this works, everything. We can definitely sign up there, do like a little demo, and And we'll be more than happy to kind of show you that. And my parting words is going to be, it's learn to adopt it, AI, now, especially if you're in your business. If you're thinking about maybe using it for your business, one thing I like to say is think how AI can help you generate more revenue in your business. How can you use it? How can you use AI and leverage it to increase more revenue and bring in more revenue to your business?

Yeah.

figure that out with what we do. We help with that. But once you figure that out, that's when you're going to start changing and really pushing your business into the— what's going to be the next revolution when it comes to AI. Yeah, the next level up. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So if you guys could do me a big favor, jump on the live feed and put your website in the comments. That way we can find it and put it— because we have to do the show notes after the show. We want to be able to find all that kind of stuff, and it's easier if you guys just put the link in there. Also, people can just click on it from there and find you guys.

Perfect.

After they've been listening to you. Sounds great. Maybe you can tell AI to do that. I don't know. Awesome. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. Let me go ahead and thank our sponsors for this show. Lone Star Appliance Repair, 936-647-2364. Guys, again, it is way cheaper to rip repair an appliance than it is to replace it. And it's, it's just great to be dealing with an honest company that is going to treat you right and give you the best price on getting your appliance repaired. They are the best company here in Texas to get your appliance fixed. I've met with every single one of their techs and they are fantastic. We've had them out to our house, we've had them out to

Kevin's house, and they're gonna get you taken care of. Fantastic company. We are proud to have them as a sponsor. for the show. We also have True Texas Solar and Roofing, guys, 936-286-8325. This is our newest sponsor right now, and guys, if you want energy independence for your home, they are going to be a great company to work with. They can set you up with solar, they can set you up with a whole home battery, they can set you up with a generator, and they can set you up with all 3 so that you have complete energy independence. You never have to tap into the grid ever again. Well, maybe just a little bit, but

at the same time, they can also set you up with a brand new roof before you put those panels down so that you don't have to replace them at different times. They're going to give you the honest opinion and best service that you can find in the industry, and they are weeding out the scammers because there are lots of scammers with the solar stuff, guys. You want to be dealing with a reputable company that has been doing this for a while and is going to give you the Straight business when it comes to solar. There's still some good incentives out there through the federal government to get your solar put up now. Take advantage of it while it is still there. Give them a call, True Texas Solar and Roofing,

936-286-8325. Give them a call, True Texas Solar and Roofing. All right, we got a new guest sitting down. Hang on, I'm gonna adjust the camera so I can get you the shot here. All righty, why don't you let everybody know exactly who you are and what you do?

Very good. My name is Mike Tamez, and, uh, we're a family-owned and operated, uh, restoration company. We do From mitigation to complete, uh, build back, and we've been doing it for some time.

And yeah, yeah, is, is it mostly like flooding that you guys deal with?

Anything that requires an insurance company. It could be a tree, it could be, uh, hail, it could be a fire, it could be a toilet that overflowed. It could be small as that, but something that small can become a great problem. People don't realize water travels different places So yeah, we take any size job.

Right. So like, when— like, fire is one that intrigues me because like it seems like there's a lot of stuff that fire can get to that you can't see.

Between walls, absolutely. Yeah. So fire is one of the more difficult ones because of the fact that—

Scoot up just a little bit.

Sure.

Yeah, I mean, how do you guys manage that? I mean, like, I mean, with, with a fire, I mean, do you just have to start ripping walls out when you can't see? Or I mean, like, how do you, how do you manage that?

So yes, so if there was fire, then, then there was water taking place from, you know, to put it out.

Yeah, so we get secondary damage.

So one of the things you can do is you go with our infrared equipment and we start looking for a change in temperature where you could have water traveled. Yeah, in other cases you do spot checks for, you see where the fire, you can You look at outlets, you can see smoke, so you get an indication where fire has traveled.

Sure, yeah, I mean, yeah, there's usually a good—

Yeah, so from there you have to open up, you start and work your way, but there's different techniques to get down to the root of, you know, anything that's out there because you're absolutely right, very difficult. What you can't see is hard. If you don't have the right tools, it's hard to find until sometimes customers find out many years later, and we make sure that doesn't happen to our customers.

Well, I mean, I even imagine like with fire, like insulation being an issue? I mean, because like it melts it, I would imagine it melts the insulation.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, depending on the insulation.

It depends if it was a lot of heat or it's just smoke and where it's traveled. Yeah, absolutely. So all that has to be— you have to assume that smoke fire does probably as much or more damage than water.

Is fire and water damage different I mean, one of the things, one of the trends that we're noticing with new builds in particular are these foam-insulated homes.

Right.

You know, you're like, you're having it done on the ceiling deck of in the attic, you're having it done in the walls and different things. And I, I've had good friends that have had to completely move out of their homes because of mold issues, right, with, with, with foam, because it wasn't— either the foam wasn't installed properly or the HVAC system wasn't put in properly.

Absolutely.

You know, all these kinds of issues, but like Does foam cause any sort of secondary issues with fire is what I'm wondering. I mean, like, or have you even seen anything like that?

So we have not come across— we don't, you know, the good thing is that you don't see as many fire issues anymore just because the fact that houses are built a lot better now. You got a lot of smoke prevention things out there. But in the foam insulation is relatively new. So we haven't come across that, but yeah, depending upon where the fire was in that area, so all that can exacerbate. And absolutely, once the integrity of it's gone, then you've got to replace it anyway.

Yeah, I mean, can you put foam on top of where old foam was?

I mean, it becomes a tedious job.

That's what I was like.

Yeah, exactly.

I mean, how do you guys deal with that?

So you just have to remove it, scrape it off.

Okay, so you just got to go in and completely remove it.

it.

Yeah, that's crazy, man. That's, that's got to be crazy expensive.

Yeah, like I said, we, we don't run across a lot of those just because we haven't—

Well, look, I think, I think you're going to be.

Yeah, because there's a lot more coming.

Yeah, look, there are builders are— because of the incentives that the Fed is giving to builders to put foam in houses, right, they're almost moving exclusively to it, right? You know, and, and so like Mitigating some of those secondary issues further down the line when like guys like you have to come in, like I would think it's almost going to become standard practice. Like, it— like blown insulation, that's going to become a thing of the past, I think.

Yeah, and that's why our technicians are constantly getting certified and getting trained. They've got to know the latest that's out there and what the techniques and proper techniques are. Training is ongoing.

How do you guys How do you guys even get the training? I mean, like, where are you guys getting it from?

You get a lot of online training. You can sign up for some other programs that are out there.

Okay.

Specifically for that.

I mean, do you guys have to be licensed through the state?

In Texas, there's actually— there's no licenses in construction in the state of Texas.

Okay, I knew that, but like, I knew it's different in other states.

Yeah, in other states you do, but we're localized. We're here. Our areas are going to be the Montgomery, the Houston.

Okay.

This is our area here.

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's That's actually why I think like what you said is so valuable because Texas is kind of still the Wild West when it comes to construction.

Yeah.

You know, I, I, we have our good buddy up in Portland, Eric G. He's been doing his radio show for, you know, 20 years and he is just always aghast that roofers and GCs don't have to be licensed in Texas. And, and, and like on one hand I agree with him, On the other hand, it's like, yeah, but it's way easier for me to weed out the jokers, right? You know, because like, you know, I know in my industry where I have to be licensed, like there's still a lot of shenanigans and tomfoolery, you know, with people that have licenses. It doesn't stop stupid people from doing business.

Exactly, because a lot of people are doing it, so it's best to get The right people.

Yes.

People that are certified.

Well, and like, as a homeowner, I mean, like, it's good to do your research as to who you're hiring, right? Which is— look, that was part of the reason we even started this show, is because we wanted to make it easier for people to access information about their home, right? Because most people just won't take the time to actually do their diligence on the back end when they're hiring a contractor, when they're hiring a roofer, when they're— whatever it is, right? You know, thank you. Um, you know, and so it's, you know, anyway, so what's, what's one of the worst things that you've seen as far as like remediation? I mean, like—

Wow, we've seen, we've seen it all. I mean, um, you know, one of the hardest things is, is when you have especially like the hurricanes and you've got floods, what happens is when you get the exterior wall, so you have cladding, it may be brick or whatever it may be, and you've got your sheeting in between.

Right.

Once that sheeting gets damaged, the solution— do you have to take all your outside siding or brick?

Right.

Are you able to work from the inside? So those become very difficult because obviously you're dealing with insurance and you're dealing with your client. You never want to leave anything exposed. So we're very clear who our customer And that's the homeowner.

Okay.

And that's not always the case. So we, we are, you know, we are— we work for the customer, but we really hound the insurance to make sure that we get everything the customer needs to get that house built.

Well, that was actually gonna be my follow-up, is like, are you guys typically dealing with insurance companies?

We deal— in fact, 99.9% of our jobs are dealing with insurance. We love dealing with insurance. We know their system, we know the programs they use, we know inside and out. So when we do, for example, mitigation, we don't hold back. We tell our customers we're going to remove everything it needs to, and we're taking full accountability. We know what we can do. When we do a mitigation, we take about 2,000 pictures. We code it, we mark it, we indicate it. We have everything. An inspector can come out, the house could be spot clean, but they can see exactly what took place because of all our documentation. That's the most critical thing that you can do in this business when you're dealing with insurance

is documentation. So we know them inside and out, we know how to document it, and that allows us to get a lot of repeat customers because customers— recommendations rather. We get a lot of recommendations come from previous customers, and we like that. Yeah.

Is the reporting system that you have, is that something you guys developed or is that something you're utilizing? No, there's systems out there.

There's systems out there. So we use code system, everything. If we do pack up, we'll move everything out, put it back in. We do everything for the customer. We'll help the customer make sure they get a place wherever they need to. We'll help them work with their insurance and we take care of everything.

Yeah. So is— and I was speaking to some roofers earlier and things in the roofing industry are changing rapidly when it comes to insurance. Are things changing for you guys as well?

There's not so much. Roofing is a lot in other states too, especially like you go into Florida, everything's changing.

California and Florida, man. Like California, Texas, and Florida. California, Florida, Texas. Those are like the 3 worst insurance states. And they're talking about making big changes in Louisiana too.

I was gonna say Louisiana's one.

Yeah. So I mean, but like things aren't changing for you guys a whole lot or?

Not a whole lot at this point, but Again, our technicians are always in the loop. Yeah, they know what's, what's up and notifies our team. And yeah, we stay on top of that.

So like, I know, I know a big thing around here is like, if you're— because they've changed the floodplains, they, and they continue to change the floodplains. Does that change the way that homeowners, you know, get to utilize your services or the way that insurances pay out for you guys, or?

No, the only thing that changes is that if the customer— we tell our customers, verify whether you are in flood zones or not because of the fact that they change every year.

Yeah.

And we've run into customers that, oh, I've never been in the flood zone. You check. Are you now?

Yeah.

Get that flood insurance.

Well, yeah, because I mean, that's, that's the thing that's happening with roofs is, you know, a long time ago it was pretty common for flooding to be included in a homeowner's policy, and now it's not. And I think that what the insurance companies are telling us, at least here in Texas and Louisiana and Florida, it seems like, is the roofing is going to be a completely separate policy. Yeah, moving forward.

Yeah.

And I believe, look, it's not gonna make anybody happy.

No, but it's gonna be a lot more complicated.

Yeah. Yeah. So, and then, I mean, are you guys, are you guys dealing with mold and mildew as well?

So we're not certified for mold. If we identify it, then obviously we can get—

You can bring in somebody that can.

That's right.

Yeah, I mean, okay, so then like what is like—

What customer that has experienced some type of damage to their property, whether it's fire, smoke, or rain, you know, water, hurricane, anything. Yeah, and from there we can assess and lead them the right direction and take the appropriate steps.

I got you. So you guys want to get out in front of like mold and mildew Before it even sets in.

That is incredible. And that's why we, you know, we run into customers, they go, well, I know a contractor, but you can do the mitigation, that's all we need. So, so many times we do the mitigation, they see us get in there, we put a team in there, we get in there, we protect everything from the floor, ventilation. You're not, you know, we use special type of, yeah, you know, air filters for the purpose of keeping the house intact. So we do that, get in there, get out. Usually by the time the customers see you do that, they just say, you know what, do the bill back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I remember, I think it was Hurricane Harvey, I remember going around, we were, we were helping people clean out their houses and stuff like that. And I remember so many people, we were trying to help some people out treating their house. What's the name of the product? I can't think of it right now. I'll think of it here in a second. But so many of them were like, no, no, no, don't help us, we're just gonna spray the house with bleach. And I'm just like, that's really not good. That's not good.

That's why, that's why we tell our customers, let us get in there, let us get it out, and you don't have to worry about anything but your deductible. We'll take care of it. You will not— because you won't get hit with a customer saying, oh, that's not covered. We will take care of all that because it's so critical to get everything out of there.

Yeah, so sorry, we were getting some interference going on over here. Okay, we're good. So anyway, uh, she's going to bring somebody on here in a minute. Anything else you want everybody to know about your, about your company?

Uh, no, just that, uh, we, we are family-owned and we take everything to heart. We love our customers and we take— we, we do it in a personal level, and that helps us going because mitigation and all that is difficult, um, but we see the end result And we just, again, our customers come from referrals and that's how we like to get them.

Yeah, and how do people get a hold of you if they want to contact you, reach out to you?

You can look at our website there, NextGen, and there's some postings. We've got someone that keeps posting. You can see some of the jobs that we've done. You can call us, but we're on just about any way you get a hold of us. We're on Facebook. Okay, so you should be able to find us, Next Gen Restoration.

Next Gen Restoration. If you would do me a favor, when you, when you jump off, jump on the live feed and drop your, drop your web link and your phone number and everything in the comments.

Perfect.

That way we can put it in the show notes later on.

Oh great.

Yeah, when it goes out, I mean, it's obviously up on Facebook and, you know, you can link it up there and people can find it, but like we want to put it in the show notes later on when we actually publish the episode.

So very good.

Very good to meet you, man. Thank you for sitting down.

Likewise. This is my first one. You were great. You were easy on me. I appreciate it.

My pleasure. Thank you for sitting down. Alrighty, man. All right, guys, we were having a good time. Are you sitting down with me? All right, come on. How you doing, buddy? Doing good, bud. Sit down.

All right.

So I just, I just did an ad for you guys. All right. Love the ads. Absolutely love the ads, man. Let's see if I can— oh, there. Boom. There you go. Right. You're right in the shot. Good job. Um, didn't even have to move the camera or nothing, man. Hey, I, I'm, I'm not that photogenic, so I don't know. We'll do, we'll do the best that we can. You having fun tonight? Yeah, having a good time. Meet anybody interesting? Uh, I've met a few people. Yeah. Um, I, I'm horrible with names. Their business cards are either in my pocket or in Darlene's pocket. I don't know. So Darlene didn't want to sit down? No, she said— I, I— she

said she didn't have the head for it tonight. Well, we talk about her enough on the show. She gotta— she gotta come and come by and say hi. I mean, she doesn't run off. Yeah, she was out here a minute ago. Anyway, dude, you've been running wild. What's that again? You've been running wild. I have. I've been running ragged here lately. Um, Work for us is good. We're looking to start a new division of installation, just not, not just repairs anymore. We're, we're, we're getting things rolling for doing that, working on licensing and insurance and all that. Is there different licensing for installs? Yeah, so appliance, appliance installation requires a type of an electrician's license. Oh, okay. So So that's what I'm

getting into. I'm starting to study for all that stuff. Are you looking to work for some of the big box companies? Is that what's— Yeah, we're going to look at getting some contracts through a couple of the big box companies. It's going to expand our customer base as well because a lot of people turn around and they'll ask us, you know, do you do— Right now we, we do the occasional install, but not really a lot of them. We don't, we don't do that. We have kind of a gray area workaround because we do uninstall them. Yeah, you pull them out to work on them. Yeah, we uninstall them to service them, so we have to know how to reinstall them for

sure. So it's kind of a gray area workaround that we, we get to do that, but we can't advertise as installers. because we're not—

I gotcha.

We don't have that license.

We don't—

we can't get those contracts and all that. Is it really that, like, fine of a line where, like, you guys can pull them out, completely unplug it, unplumb it, and put it back, but you just can't put a brand new one in there? Yeah, it's, it's weird. That seems bizarre to me. The state of Texas has some weird laws when it comes to licensing. Well, I mean, like, not as weird as other ones. I mean, like, this, this I mean, like, I was, I was actually just talking to somebody about this, how like you don't have to have a license to be a roofer or a GC in the state of Texas. No, you don't. And so like, to me, like, I understand why we

have licensing for like plumbers and electricians and guys like me. Yeah. But like for stuff like that, it seems kind of— and I'm not saying that what you guys do is not complicated. It's very complicated. But like if they're gonna let you pull it out, and work on it, you would think, you would think it'd be perfectly fine for you to put a brand new one in. Well, that's the, that's the bureaucrat mindset, you know. But like, they've probably never even thought about it in those terms. No, but you, you know, you're talking about here in the state of Texas, roofers, general contractors. I used to hold a real estate inspector's license many moons ago, and in California you can hang up a shingle.

No requirements whatsoever in California. And their building codes are a lot stricter than ours because you've got to have houses that are earthquake-proof and all this other stuff, you know. But any Joe Schmo can go hang up shingle and be an inspector, real estate inspector in California. But here we've got one of the most rigorous licensing tests in the, in the nation. Yes. I mean, and the state of Texas is real— like I said, they're real finicky. Take— I know your favorite subject is garbage disposals.

I do love them.

Technically, a garbage disposal is an appliance that requires a plumbing license. It's attached to the plumbing, the— that's— and the electrical. But like, you attach a garbage disposal to the bottom of a sink.

Thank you.

Kevin's not here to defend himself because he's a moron watching baseball. But so, but the sink itself is not the appliance. That's, that's a plumbing fixture. Yeah, but we're not gonna go there. But technically, you've got 3 trades there because the disposal itself is considered an appliance. It's connected to the plumbing and the electrical. Yep. So technically you have to have 3 different guys to install one can that big. Yeah. And it's, it's ridiculous. But again, that's bureaucracy getting in the way. Yeah. I mean, that said, I understand— I also understand why they have licensing for installation. I've gone under dishwashers and found, found loose wire that have just burned up.

Yep.

Stuff is just jimmied in there. Bubba done it work. This is my problem is you're, I mean, like, and it's not to take away anything from plumbers at all.

No.

But like on most appliances, you're dealing with more complicated plumbing than P-traps. You know what I mean? Yeah, well. I mean, because there's like in a dishwasher, there's pumps, And there's all sorts of plumbing fixtures inside of a dishwasher, right? Yeah, even in a refrigerator. Even in a refrigerator. You know, you got an electromagnetic solenoid that allows water to flow from your water supply. You've got a drain pump, you've got a circulation pump, you've got all the electronics in there. Yeah. And you more often than not, you've got high and low voltage in there as well. I mean, you— to work on the appliances, you've really got to be a jack of all the trades. You've got to know, you've got to know just enough about all of them to be dangerous. But like, this, this is part of why we like,

like, you having you guys as a sponsor of the show is because like these are the most complicated items in your house most of the time. Like that have, that have like the most moving pieces, that have the most electronics. I mean, take, take for example your, your home PC. it's a CPU and a screen. Now take your dishwasher. You've got a computer in there that not only has basically a keyboard, your user interface, a display, either LEDs or an LCD readout, then you've also got a PLC controller in there, essentially in the motherboard. Yep. Which tells all the pumps when to run, the solenoids when to open, the heater turns on and off. It, it controls all When do I just— when do I let the soap go?

You know, all that. It is a more complicated— it's, it's a dumber but more complicated system. Well, and then like tag on to that, like one of these like Samsung refrigerators that has the touchscreen. Oh yeah, like the 3-foot touchscreen on the outside, you know, that's— I mean, that's a whole separate computer that you have to know how to either replace, repair. It amazes you. It's just a tablet. I would— I don't doubt that. It's a tablet with a plug on the back that it communicates with everything else. And so you can just take one out and put another one in?

Yep.

How much are those? About $1,000. Yeah, there you go. And here's the fun part. I tell people when I'm doing one, I've only done a handful of them because people hear the price and they go, oh, never mind. And they go duct tape a tablet over it. But the few times that I have replaced them, you get glass suction cups and stick them, stick them to the front of it. You put your knee on the door and yank it as hard as you can. I tell customers, don't look, you don't want to see this. You don't want to watch. It's like pulling a tooth. Oh yeah, and it's a violent affair because it usually doesn't come in one tug.

No, no, there's no way. No, they're, they're clipped in there pretty solid. Yeah. And it usually sounds really bad when they come loose. But I think it goes back— With you here, because you told me the other night, and if you don't mind sharing, like, Kevin and I stayed at an Airbnb that had one of those ice makers you and I were talking about the other night that makes the round balls. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you said that's an LG refrigerator? Yes, LG. And like, look, we're not, we're not here— If anybody else has come out with one, I'm not aware of it as of yet, but LG is the one that's known Yeah, so like, and we're not here to disparage any brands or anything like that, so like, let's put that

on the table. But you were telling me, uh, because we were talking about ice makers breaking, right? And you— I, I told you, I was like, man, I found this one that we stayed at this Airbnb, it had this amazing ice maker, it's making the perfect balls for my Old Fashioneds.

Oh yeah.

And, uh, you were like, yeah, don't ever have that thing break because just the ice maker— Just the ice maker, never mind the labor and and all that stuff, right? Ice maker alone is about $500 to replace it. For an ice maker? For— yeah. So, and I think I was, I was looking online the other day. I'm always searching for this stuff. I'm just always interested to see what's out there in the market. I think GE makes like a tabletop ice maker version of that that I think is $350. Really? I'll have to look up that. Yeah, yeah, that's an— that's interesting. I haven't heard that yet. You know, like, I mean, it's not big. I mean, it'll

hold you know. No, I mean, they've been making 10 ice cubes or like ice balls or whatever it is. But like, yeah, I saw one the other day. It was, it was around that price. It was like $357 or something like that. I'd have to go back and look it up. I mean, countertop ice makers have been around for, I don't know, 4 or 5 years now, I guess. Yeah, maybe a little longer than that. Yeah, longer than that. And, uh, usually they either make the sonic ice or the little, the little tube ice or whatever. And when, when people get sticker shock when I tell them, you know, it's $350, $455, whatever, to replace an ice maker with labor and all that, you know, they get that sticker shock. And I tell them like, look, here's the other option. You can go on

Amazon, they make a countertop ice maker for $100, right? But it's going to take up a chunk here. Yeah, you're going to lose some space. You're going to lose some space. I mean, it's, it's a reasonable Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are most of those ice makers, the countertop ones, I mean, do you, do you put in a water line or is it just pouring water into it? You're pouring water into them. Okay, the little bitty cheap countertop ones you're pouring water into. Um, I mean, I know they have like the under-the-counter ones that tap into the water line. Yeah, the nice under-the-counter ones, they run a few grand and that's a, that's a whole other can of worms there. But

those you do hook up a water line. water line. I actually worked on a KitchenAid earlier today right before I came up here. Oh, I had to replace a water valve and it got damaged in this last freeze that we had. Oh, got a little chilly? Yeah, a little chilly, so it broke the water valve in the water line. So customer had a little bit of a leak problem, so we replaced all that and got them back up and running. But in my experience, those, those under-the-counter ice makers, they are quite possibly the most self-destructive appliance. I tell people, first thing I do when I start looking at a— when I start looking at one of those ice makers is, first thing I do

is check the manufacturer tag and look when it— how long ago it was manufactured. Because if it's 7 years or older, I tell them, you're gonna throw good money after bad. We might, we might not be able to fix And believe me, you can throw a lot of money into this thing trying to fix it. Well, look, I mean, we've talked a couple times on the show now since you've been out to my house about the oven that we have that's been discontinued.

Yeah.

And I was like, I was like, look guys, this is why you don't buy cheap crap. Yeah. I mean, like, and that's, that's literally what happened with our oven is somebody was like, look, let's just buy the cheapest oven that we can, stick it in here. And now it's like, yeah, we can't even fix it. It was such a piece of crap that they discontinued the model. They discontinued making the parts and they cut bait and moved on, and I don't blame them. That's a Samsung, right? It was a Samsung, yeah. Yeah, we're not gonna disparage brands, right? Right, but that's what it was. Yeah, Samsung does do some good things, they do some bad things, and

that's any company out there. You know, nobody makes the perfect unit ever. They've— since 1984, they've been operating under the theory of designed obsolescence. Yeah, as have most brands. You're right. I mean, all of them. Case in point, I see ovens built from the '50s, '60s, '70s, up into the early '80s. Yeah. I'll still see them and they're still working. Yeah, yeah. And they might not look great, but they're still working. And then from about 1985 to about 2009, there's nothing because all of that is obsoleted and in a landfill somewhere. Are there no brands that were really making good stuff then though? I mean, like— The only company that I can say that still makes really good stuff

the way it was made once upon a time is probably Speed Queen. Okay. And Speed Queen, they're known for their industrial stuff, their laundromat washers, industrial, commercial, all that. We've talked about them 100 times on the show. Right. Yeah, yeah, Speed Queens are phenomenal. They have that small residential branch of their business that they, they do that. Here's the interesting part: they use a lot of the same vent for all the residential stuff that they don't manufacture, like lid locks, for your washer and whatnot. Yeah, they actually use the same vendor as Whirlpool for those components. Oh, really? So I always tell people, it's like, look, if when it comes to washers and dryers, if you can do Speed Queen, great. Your kids will inherit them. They're tanks. Yeah, I've been called out

6, 7 times on Speed Queens. Only half the time the problem was actually with the, the unit itself. The unit itself usually it's the houses that's the problem. Figure that one out. But I always tell them, if you can't do the Speed Queen thing, Whirlpool products— Whirlpool, Maytag, Jenn-Air, KitchenAid, Amana— they're all Whirlpool. Uh, it's not that they don't break down. Half of everything I worked on today was Whirlpool, but that's usually not the case. It's usually 1 or 2 items that I work on a day from Whirlpool. Everything is everybody else. What about like, like Viking and like Sub-Zero and— oh, what's the other one I'm thinking of? I don't know. Go ahead. Yeah. My grandfather

was a very wise man, in my opinion. I'm sure most people think their grandfathers are pretty wise. My grandfather had a philosophy: buy the simplest thing you can buy because it's just more stuff to break. So that said, Viking, Sub-Zero, Wolf— That's the other one I was thinking of.

Yeah.

Yeah, Wolf is a subset of area of Sub-Zero. Yeah, right. They're phenomenal units. Absolutely phenomenal. Again, like in the case of Sub-Zero, they're known for commercial and whatnot. They just happen to have a small residential branch of their company. They make— like, we used Sub-Zero ovens when I worked at Halliburton many moons ago, but we were baking downhole oil tools that were 30 feet long.

Right.

We're using massive ovens for them. So that's what they're— that's their bread and butter, is building stuff like that. They just do that also, right? So those units are good, but again, they, they've got stuff that breaks down on them. They're— it's just the nature of the beast. But also with that name brand, you know, it's like buying a Cadillac over a Chevy. You're going to pay paying for that Cadillac emblem. Same thing with a Sub-Zero, you're going to pay for that name. So like, if something goes wrong with one of those, is it more expensive to repair it? It does usually cost more. Yeah, yeah. Now again, like Speed Queen, they use— they will use other parts. Yeah,

Sub-Zero ice makers are either Frigidaire ice makers or Whirlpool ice makers. Okay, just depending on the model, they, you know, some Sometimes they're interchangeable with the wiring harness or whatever. Yeah, yeah. But that's— there are certain things that they just don't manufacture. They don't see the need to manufacture it because there's already something out there that's good and works. So they just, they just pilfer it from somebody else.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, but it also keeps the repair costs down. That— well, that's just it. They— Sub-Zero and them, they won't give you the part number for the Whirlpool version of the part. They take it, re-box it into their stuff. Oh gosh. And then you pay again sticker shock. Of course they do. You know, a Whirlpool ice maker's anywhere from $150 to $225. Is there, is there no way to end around that? I mean, like, you just don't know because like you have to submit the— So I haven't, I haven't figured it out. I haven't figured out the correlation or the crossover. However, uh, our owner Sarah, she's She's working on it.

She's got most of them. Oh, really? Yeah, she's got most of them, or she knows, uh, she's got contact at one of the parts houses that can figure that roundabout stuff for— I mean, like, somebody, somebody needs to expose that if that's what they're doing. Well, I mean, it's like going— I'm not trying to paint a target on you guys, but that's— no, no, that's pretty shady. No, but I mean, I, I get it, but Take for example, um, have you ever used RockAuto? No, what's that? Uh, it's a website for looking up, uh, for ordering car parts. Okay. And if you go through it, it'll tell you what parts are OEM and what parts are, uh,

OEM, right? You know, so OEM being, you know, it's the Chevy or Ford.

Yeah, yeah.

or whatever those brands are. Then you got the OEM, which might be some different name. I got you. But it's, it's who manufactured that for ACDelco or Ford or whoever, you know. And you can get it for $100 cheaper. Yeah. You know, and it's, it's learning those tricks and those roundabouts that allows you to make a little bit bigger profit on it. You know, you just say, okay, here's, here's the cost for this unit for your brand. Yeah. You know, and then if you, if you can find the workaround and get the other part number for the cheaper version, well, you just bumped up your, your profit margin a little bit there. Yeah. So I'm getting the, I'm getting the signal from

JoJo, uh, to, to kick you off of this thing. Not, not that, not that you're getting kicked off. You're always welcome on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure, Oh yeah, man, let everybody know. Give them the— do you know the phone number? Uh, I can pull it up for you. Here, I got, I got you. Lone Star Appliance Repair, 936-647-2364. Uh, you're the lead tech for the company, WT Mon. So we'd love to hear from you. Uh, anybody in our general area around Conroe, Montgomery area, we are looking for a technician right now. So, oh yeah, like there's a Put that out there. I mean, because you're— Feel free to email me a resume, uh, wtmoughn@gmail.com.

Um, we just need some mechanical background. I can teach you just about anything else they need to know. Yeah, if you don't mind, jump on the live feed and leave that, that information in the comments. That way we can grab it and stick it in the notes and get it out to as many people as we can. You want to find you guys a— Absolutely. Great company to work for. So yeah, um, I've been here— I, I'm that guy that would work for a company about 6 months and get disgruntled. I've been here just short of 5 years. I'm still as happy today as the day I started.

There you go.

So an absolute great, great family environment to work in. Yeah, everybody, everybody helps each other. So we love you guys. So thank you for jumping on, bud. Absolutely. Go have a good time. Hey, you too.

Take care.

Thanks, bud. All right guys, we're, we're winding down to the end of this thing. Hope you've enjoyed the show so far, and if not, I hope you can jump on the live feed and, uh, have a good time with us. Now we're gonna bring on, I think, one or two more guests and, uh, see where the rest of the night takes us. I wanted to give a big thank you. We just thanked, uh, Lone Star Appliance Repair. Thank them again, 936-647-2364. And if you did not have a chance, just rewind a little bit and listen to the interview that we just gave with them. Find out why, uh, they are the best appliance repair company in the state of Texas. Um, what's going on, Paul? Are you

gonna sit down? I won't sit in here. Come on. Oh, hang on here. Hey, did you meet this guy right here? Yeah, I met John.

Michael.

Michael. You want to sit down with, with Say what? I mean, you can sit down right here. Let her sit here. No, no, I mean, we got, we got 4 chairs here, Paul. Come on, she, she don't want to pull up right here. I'd say she's a little nicer looking. Look, out of the, out of the 4 of us, you're not going to get an argument out of me on that one. Uh, let's see here. Are you— you just want to sit down? Do you want to be in the shot? Well, there's a camera right there. You want to sit right there? You're gonna eat my pretzel? Is that— okay. All right, hang on. All right, is there too much gluten in there? Is that what's— No, it looks good.

All right, all right. So I got, I got, I got Paul the plumber and, uh, real estate agent Michael here. Michael, remind me who you're, who you're with again. Uh, so I'm with, uh, my broker is Realty One Group. My team is, uh, John Garrett. Okay. Yeah, dude, listen, Paul, this guy's tough. He had to share an office with Corey for a while. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh wow. Then yeah, he might have a future. There's a possibility. Yeah, dude, if you, if you get like, if you put your hand like that in front of it with your mouth and then you're close enough. All right, there you go. That, that, that's the only way because I don't have headphones for you guys. I have a big nose though, so I mean, I might need a little more space. If you hit it, you're all— you're still fine. All right, all

right, cool. I'll pull you down a little bit. You guys having fun tonight? Yeah, yeah. Paul, what have you been up to, man? I hadn't talked to you in a while. Man, it's, it's been hit or miss lately, the last couple months. Okay. So we're hanging in there like a hair on a biscuit. A hair on a biscuit? Yeah. You need to get some gravy. Oh, I need some. I need some. Like some water heater installs and stuff. Yeah, I need some. Yeah. Are you guys doing more of the, the tankless, or are you doing like the traditional? We do both. I know you do both. It's hard. It's hard as of late. We've, we've got 3 of them we've done, so I'd like to do more, just— yeah, I like that endless hot water. Well, listen,

like, you guys had to turn me down because I didn't have the right kind of gas line. And I think that's the thing a lot of people don't realize— you got to have the right gas line to even get those things put into the house. That's right. Electric tankless doesn't really work well. One, you gotta have too much power, and you only get about 4 to 6 gallons a minute. With your normal tankless, you're getting about 10 gallons to 11 gallons a minute. It's 10-something, but it depends on the temperature of the water coming in. If it's warmer, you get a few more gallons or a little, you know, a little another gallon or so. Yeah. So I don't know the formula. I could look it up on the

book, but it depends on your water. But I think they say that 74 degrees It's 10.7 gallons a minute. Yeah, yeah, in a tankless. So, are— I mean, like, are less people— one of the things I'm seeing in a few homes are these tankless under-the-sink electric water heaters. That's point-of-use. Point-of-use. Yeah, point-of-use. Like, it's like a half a gallon a minute. Yeah. And if you have a— it has a special aerator that slows it way down. Okay. If you don't have that aerator, it won't work. You have to slow You have to turn that faucet almost all the way off to get the right amount of hot water. Is that because it has to slow the water down in order to get

it up to temp? To heat it, yep. Exactly. Okay, so the air rider is like absolutely necessary. It's needed. Yep. That's crazy. So I mean, like, well, okay, so you got, you got this young real estate agent sitting next to you here. Like, what are some of the plumbing features that you're seeing that, that buyers are looking for? I mean, because Paul wants to know what he needs to be marketing. Yeah. What do you— I'd say as far as plumbing goes, tankless is definitely a good feature to have.

Yeah.

Especially so, like a lot of the new builds, some of the higher-end builders are putting tankless in almost all their homes. So if you're looking at a new build, then you're kind of expecting a tankless almost. Yeah. Especially, you know, a little bit above maybe the average or median price. Are they almost all natural gas or are they electric or what are we looking at here? It's a range. It depends on the area. It depends on the builder. So I mean, I would say I'm seeing more electric. Really? Yeah, but it just depends on the builder mostly. So other than the tankless, I mean, water purification like under the sink, anything like that, it's definitely a bonus. People seem to get really excited about that. So if there's anything like that in a home, you

know, especially a resale home, yeah, that's definitely a big bonus. Is, is that like an RO system underneath the sink, Paul? You got 2 different types of systems for a house. You have, you have a either— well, 3 basically. You have either a softener that comes into the house, or a softener and a carbon filter. Softener just removes hardness. Carbon filter will remove chlorine and different additives that the mud district— if you have wells, you just want a softener, and you might want some sort of iron filter, but you don't really need a carbon filter on a well. Uh-huh. But we got 2 different systems. We have a system for a whole house with softener,

softener, carbon filter, or, or, and/or RO system that fits under the sink for your drinking water. And that'll have— ours happens to have 4 filters, right? A sediment filter, a carbon filter, RO membrane, and then a pH booster on ours. Okay. Ours is really good. Good in my opinion is for the price you pay, right? It's very good system for the money, right? And, and for all those, uh, lovely Woodlands crunchy out there. Which one of those is gonna get rid of the fluoride in the water? I'm gonna be honest, man. When you get down to fluoride and certain things in the water, I've had put one RO system for a whole house. I'll never do— I never recommend it again. Really?

It's just because it's so much maintenance on it. Yeah, and you're constantly changing filters, and you've got to take the water that happens to be on a well Okay. They were, they were getting readings of animal feces in the water on the samples, and, and it was really bad. So that customer opted for an RO system. I wasn't crazy about it because I knew it was going to be some maintenance. Plus, it takes the water, goes through all the filtration of an RO system, and ends up in a tank. And so it holds in a 200-gallon tank. Oh, and then it gets gets pumped into the house. I wasn't crazy about it. And they had copper water pipe, which causes the copper to

start leaching, right? So they kept that system for 2 years before they repiped the whole house with PEX. So everything inside the house, porcelain, was green. Oh, so— and then it's crazy, but, but it is— it's the cleanest water they have. Yeah, but it's a lot of maintenance. And it wasn't worth— So when you say a lot of maintenance, was that something you were having to go out to like monthly? Was it like weekly? Well, that was the first system I've ever put in. I did a lot of the under-the-sink ones for drinking water. Those are really fairly easy, but the one for a whole house, I'm telling you, I had to get used to it. So I went out for free on a lot of these first 6 months, 8 months just to

get the system kind of calibrated to where if one of the pumps wasn't working right, it'd blow the top off the RO membrane. Oh, geez. So that cylinder, I had to replace that. So after that, I was like, you know, hey guys, I'll give you a softener and maybe a filter of some sort. a sediment filter in its place, and they go, man, we, we have to have RO water for our whole house. Yeah, I don't know anything about the filters or softeners. I just know what it looks like when it's under the sink, so I'm like, you know, hey, there's, there's something in there. Feature. Yeah, filtering the water. I don't know exactly how much it does. The RO system will have a drain Okay. That goes into a

drain, or it'll drain, go up to the faucet, then back out of the faucet. Won't go through the faucet. Yeah. It's just a high point. Yeah. And come back down into the drain system. If it's just a filtration system, it'll be just the tanks in and out of the, of the filter cartridges and straight to the faucet. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, so that's not RO, that's just filtered water. Well, I, and I, I know you and I have talked about this before, but like you can put one of the— and I think, what's the name of the company? There's like, it's like a tall cylinder that you can put on a line of the water line coming into the house. That's a filter that can be, it can act as a whole home filter. It's not as

good as like the system you would put in. What is it? It's like— Well, you're just talking about like a sediment filter? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a sediment filter or polyphosphate filter. It's like a first line of defense. I mean, yeah, I mean, that's the least you can do. Yeah, but it's better than nothing. Crazy to know what's in your water. ewg.org. You go there, you— Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What's that? What's that? ewg.org is an organization that does audits on water. Okay. So you can go to that website, punch in your zip code, and it'll come up with a bunch of different MUD districts or water suppliers. Right. You pick who you pay your bill to, you click that one. That's the newest report of what's in your water.

It's a law.

It's a federal law that you have to know what's in your water, especially public water. So if I have somebody moving into a house, like how important would you say it is for them to have some sort of filtration system? Like minimum, at least something. I would tell you as a plumber now, knowing more about it, because I came from a big heavy commercial background, which I saw the need for it in commercial. Yeah, because some of the equipment there was so much money. But really, a softener is the first line of defense. Filtration's okay, but it's not a softener. It's not going to remove hardness. It'll just reshape the hardness to go through the system and down the

drain.

Gotcha.

It's not going to remove it, but a softener will remove it because without the salts— people will tell you there's a saltless softener. That's a lie.

They could go to—

they could be sued for that. Every, every softener that— it's a softener has to have salt because the only way the ionic exchange happens in the resin bed of the tank, yeah, is with salt. Gotcha. You don't get salt in the house. I think the guy that, that makes them for me says you get enough salt like if you filled up a bathtub and you put one baby aspirin in it. That's the— it's like that much salt in it. You don't even taste Yeah, gotcha. And it's amazing what they take out. And the systems we have that we offer and suggest, I've gone on behalf of the company, I'm recommended by the company, the parent company for the region, to go out and look at the old

systems. I've seen systems that are 16 years old that I said, before we change it, let's just test your water. And lo and behold, It's working just like it did the first day. It's recommended 6 to 8 years, but one I've seen— I've seen one at 14, I've seen one at 16 years. Yeah, working fine. Now I'm not saying that the resin bedding will come apart and get into all the faucets. Sure. Because that happens. That's when you know things— it looks like glitter. Yeah. And you're gonna go— it's like if you ever have somebody and, hey Michael, uh, I got glitter in my bathtub. You got a softener? Yes. That's probably what it is, the resin's starting to break apart. It's either that or you got a 7-year-old. I mean, it's— Yeah, you could. Yeah, it might

be a small child, but it could be the software. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Paul, how long does it take to actually get your water tested like that? I mean, like, is it a long turnaround, short turnaround? The water tested?

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, we have a simple test that will test hardness, chlorine, iron, and TDSs. My son, my oldest son, knows a whole lot more about this. He's like a doctor at this. I know enough. I'm not saying to get in trouble. I'm not. Yeah. I feel like I'm— I've gotten really good at this, but there's 4 or 5 tests we can do. But we can do a real in-depth test that comes with a charge because we have to send it to an independent laboratory, and they will tell you every little bit in that— that what's in that water. And you could take that and we could explain what each one means. Because when I looked at

it the first time, I'm like, what is that? Right. So, I had to talk to the laboratory and they go, yeah, that's nickel, that's chromium. I got you. That's arsenic. And that's stuff that's in the water. And as long as you disclose it as a water purveyor or the supplier, it's perfectly legal. Yeah. Because you're letting the consumer know that's in your water, but the EPA, one of them acronym places, say it's safe, it's within the boundaries of acceptance, which to me, I want water I don't play with. Hardness, one, the hardness will destroy your water heater, any faucets, It's etching your glass in the shower, so, and all your whatever finishes on your faucet, it really, it wreaks havoc. Yeah, so I'm not saying you end up getting your

money back, but it's a good investment. Yeah, first investment you can make in your home that will enhance your plumbing system and prolong it. Real quick, what, I mean, like, what kind of money are people looking to spend when they're putting something something like that in? Uh, RO— not RO system, but the twin system that I recommend on public water. Yeah, softener and carbon filter. I'm at $4,639, which is a lot of times half of what these water companies are charging. Yeah, I mean, real quick, not, not $46. No, $4,639. Yeah, and like Culligan, I had a customer— I, maybe I shouldn't have said the name, But they said they got tested, they got someone that looked at theirs and said $7,995. Oh wow.

So we're a whole $3,300 cheaper than that. Yeah, and it's not cheap. It's not a cheap unit, and the unit is high quality, has a good warranty. Paul the Plumber backs it. Yeah, and then if a customer wants it, wants to get on it and do it, it at this moment for the next foreseeable future, I'm throwing in a complete RO system under the kitchen sink. Oh, that's a good deal. Free of charge. Yeah, yeah, that's an $1,100 value. Yeah, that's awesome. So, and they love it. That lady, she bought that, she said, I'm gonna cancel the thing with Culligan, I'm gonna have you come and put this in. I mean, like, but like, that's, that's the kind of thing, like, when

you're buying a home, that's, that that's the time when you want to spend that money because you can typically roll something like that into like a home loan. You could. You know, and that way it doesn't hurt you as much because you're like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna break this out over 30 years, you know, and now I'm gonna have clean water. I'm not gonna have to be dealing with all this crap. Yeah, as I'm moving forward, I'm actually curious about one of the things, one of the trends I'm seeing in homes right now are these combined bath Are you guys familiar with what I'm talking about? Combined bath? Do you know what I'm talking about? You're talking about like 2 baths? No,

it's what I'm talking— like, we, we did an Airbnb up in Oklahoma not too long ago, and we walked in the bathroom and there's like just this big area where there's a freestanding tub, but it's also in the shower area. Oh, I've seen that in one house. You know? Yeah. And for me, this seems to be a growing trend where like the shower is is in the bathtub, is in the shower. I've seen that in one place. You know, and I, I, one, I'm wondering if you're seeing this on, on, on the real estate side, and I'm wondering if you're dealing with this. Is that a plumbing nightmare? I mean, like— No, no, actually, that, that particular

customer had the shower pan put in, and then he had a wall mount faucet for this tub, right? Okay, because he didn't want to mess up the vinyl pan underneath, underneath the tile. So, and then the tub had a drain on it that didn't go into a drain. It just drained into the shower floor, right, and went straight to the shower drain, which it was really nice. But because it was already done and whoever did it missed something and I had to take it out— What'd they miss? Uh, what did he do? I think it was something about how the tub wouldn't sit just right. Okay. And I had to do something with the tub itself.

Uh-huh.

And because they're all one piece now. Well, yeah, they almost sit like flush on the floor. Yeah, flush on the floor. And I forgot what he had. I think it was something to do with the strainer, and I had to pick it up and work on it.

Okay.

And get my hand under it, and I had to put it straight up. And then I said, you know what, I got to get this thing out of here. I had to Open the— pick it up, open the shower door, it went inwards, take the tub around it, get it outside, lay it on the, on the floor, fix it, right, take it back, put it in. And, uh, but that's the first time I've seen it. I've seen it one time. Oh my gosh. So it— I've seen it. I know what it now— what that means. Yeah. So, hey, I am down to 2% battery here. I'm gonna have to wrap the show. So like, I— we could keep talking for a while now, but I need to—

I need to shut things down. I'll— if I need to go live again, I'll set up another studio without this thing. So, but thank you guys for— It's always a pleasure. Yeah, man, hanging out with you. Real quick, if people need to get a hold of you, how do they do that?

They can—

they can call our office at 832-7—

uh, 832-521-3252.

I'm so sorry, I was gonna give my cell phone. Or they can go online at www.paultheplumberllc.com and book online a request, and then we'd be glad to help them. Talk to your lovely bride, Deborah. And anything I do over the phone with a customer is free of charge. Always has been and always will be. All right, awesome. Michael? Yeah, if anybody wants to reach out to us, The easiest way is just to go to sellingthewoodlands.com. Go on the website, you can browse what we have available, our different guarantees, fill out a form, we'll give you a call or an email sometime soon. Awesome, thank you guys. Awesome, thank you.

Cool guys.

Everybody, we are so thankful that you joined us for this live broadcast here from Sawyer Ice House— Sawyer Park Ice House, excuse me. I hope you guys can always join in, tune in, download, and click and like and follow the Homeowner Show. Join us anytime that we go live, but also go and download the content. We are so thankful for you following us and making us the number one homeowner show in the country.